Signpost Raises $52 Million To Arm Main Street With Automated Marketing Technology

New Financing Led by HighBar Partners with Participation from Bank of Montreal, Georgian Partners, Spark Capital

Signpost, the cloud platform that makes marketing simple and effective for local businesses around the country, announced that it has raised $52 million in late-stage financing from HighBar Partners and BMO Bank of Montreal with participation from previous investors Georgian Partners and Spark Capital. The new investment will let Signpost scale its footprint and extend its leadership in technology for local businesses. Thousands of local businesses already use the Signpost platform to engage with their customers, improve their online reviews and drive revenue.

“While large corporations have used powerful marketing technology to drive extraordinary growth for years, local businesses — which make up 99.7% of all U.S. businesses and account for nearly half of GDP — have been left behind,” said Stuart Wall, founder and CEO of Signpost. “Signpost puts the power of the world’s largest marketing departments in the hands of local business owners and empowers them to instantly capture their customer data, get better online reviews, and win new repeat business automatically and effortlessly.”

Businesses rely on customer reviews in local searches on Google Maps, Facebook, Yelp, and others to drive new and repeat revenue. Today, at least 82% of smartphone shoppers conduct ‘near me’ searches and 90% are likely to click on the first set of results (Search Engine Land, 2018); of those, 76% call or visit the business within 24 hours (Google, 2016). Local businesses without reviews may not show up in these results and can lose critical revenue. At the same time, many business owners struggle to capture customer contact information or market to them effectively. Only half of all local businesses survive to their fifth birthday, with 82% of small business failures related to cash flow (VisualCapitalist, 2017).

“Local business owners struggle to manually create and maintain a customer list and to send consistent marketing communications,” Wall added. “Too often, they don’t have the time or resources to devote to marketing, which can make the difference between the success or failure of their business.”

Signpost Builds on Recent Success

The funding comes following a period of intense focus and strong performance for Signpost. The company achieved cash flow break-even in early 2019, ahead of schedule, supported by 43% year-over-year growth in its core product and less than one percent customer churn. Building on the growing sense of optimism, Signpost will move its New York headquarters to 275 Seventh Avenue in early July 2019. Signpost expects to add employees in all three of its office locations: New York, Austin, and Denver.

“HighBar’s investment is a vote of confidence in the right approach to applying technology to level the playing field for local businesses,” said Brian Peters, Managing Director at HighBar Partners, who will join Signpost’s Board of Directors. “The turnkey setup and level of automation in Signpost’s platform, as well as their ability to follow through on reviews and engage the modern customer well beyond their first interaction is what really sets them apart. When we consider the strength of the team, their focus on execution, and the magnitude of the market opportunity that sits before them, we couldn’t be more excited to partner with Signpost.”

“The decision to support Signpost was an easy one,” said Justin Lafayette of Georgian Partners. “They’ve identified key issues facing local business owners – specifically, the lack of time to collect customer data and engage their consumers. They’ve developed a best-in-class technology and are leveraging a unique dataset to deliver outstanding results.”

“We are excited to be working alongside Signpost – they have created an innovative solution to help small businesses compete and drive revenue growth,” said Devon Dayton, Managing Director, Technology & Innovation Banking, BMO Bank of Montreal. “The company has experienced a lot of momentum and we are looking forward to continuing this journey with them through their next phase of growth.”

Marketing Intelligence Comes to Main Street

Using Signpost’s smart CRM and automated text and email marketing, local businesses improve their ratings by 34% and increase their revenue by 14%, on average. After a five minute onboarding process, Signpost connects seamlessly to local businesses’ phone systems, email services, and other key business platforms, and gathers all their customer contact information without business owners needing to lift a finger. Having gathered behavioral data from over 70 million US consumers across all its local business customers, Signpost has unprecedented insight to send automated, personalized messages to local businesses’ contacts throughout their purchase journey and convert prospects to become new customers, drive repeat business, and generate new reviews.

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